There were a dozen easels in the room, and as many artists transferring the great picture to their canvases.

Fifty proofs of steel engravings and lithographs were scattered around, too.
And as usual, I could not help noticing how superior the copies were to the original, that is, to my inexperienced eye.

Wherever you find a Raphael, a Rubens, a Michelangelo, a Carracci, or a da Vinci (and we see them every day,) you find artists copying them, and the copies are always the handsomest.

Maybe the originals were handsome when they were new, but they are not now.
This picture is about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve high, I should think, and the figures are at least life size.

It is one of the largest paintings in Europe.
The colors are dimmed with age; the countenances are scaled and marred, and nearly all expression is gone from them; the hair is a dead blur upon the wall, and there is no life in the eyes.